Reviewed by Larissa
TITLE: Nothing Special Box Set Books #1-5
SERIES: Nothing Special
AUTHOR: A.E. Via
NARRATOR: Aiden Snow
PUBLISHER: Tantor Audio
LENGTH: 51 hours and 39 minutes
RELEASE DATE: October 27, 2020
BLURB:
A bundle of the award-winning Nothing Special series by internationally best-selling author A. E. Via.
To be accepted into the most notorious narcotics task force on the East Coast is an incredible honor. A rogue collection of the most feared and unorthodox detectives, independent of standard departmental jurisdiction. Headed up by two of the baddest lieutenants with the Atlanta Police Department – Cashel “God” Godfrey and Leonidis Day.
“We were a unit tonight, moving as one. Even apart, we are deadly, but when combined – we are f–kin’ unstoppable.” (God)
Set contains books one through five:
- Nothing Special (God and Day)
- Embracing His Syn (Detective Corbin Sydney and Furious Barkley)
- Here Comes Trouble (Detectives Mark Ruxsberg and Chris Green)
- Don’t Judge (Detective Austin Michaels and Bounty Hunter, Judge Josephson)
- Nothing Special V (Detectives Edwin Steele and Shawn Murphy, “Tech”)
FULL BOX-SET REVIEW:
The audiobook for the Nothing Special series box set, Books 1-5, provides a noteworthy example of getting more bang for your buck. For the price of one audiobook, you get almost 52 hours of Aiden Snow’s mellifluous voice bringing A.E. Via’s acclaimed Nothing Special series to life. The Nothing Special series provides a high octane, turbo-charged, addictive spree fueled by testosterone (LOTS of testosterone) and sex (LOTS of sex). Mr. Snow’s vocal performance, while variable, generally adds complexity and dimension to stories that run the risk of being one-note.
The Nothing Special box set audio allows you to settle in for over two full days straight. Have your headphones at the ready and your air conditioner cranked on high. You are going to need it with the back-to-back stories of Atlanta detectives battling the bad guys and banging each other six ways to Sunday.
The heat level on these stories is scorching. Wall-slamming, growling, domineering sex. The first five books each strike a different balance between action in the bedroom (or hallway, living room, kitchen, car, precinct …), and action on the Atlanta streets. They also vary in character and relationship development and the quality of the plot.
Nothing Special at its core is about a very unique group of men identifying what’s special about the others and bonding with them. It’s not just about the couples. It’s the found family that all of these men find together. As far as romance goes, you won’t find soft, subtle, sweet, or swoony content here. You will find furious, fast, f*cking fun from fanatical, fierce men who are hard, unyielding, and unapologetically themselves. This is why the relationships these men develop with each other over the course of the Nothing Special series are very special indeed.
Across the board, Aiden Snow provides solid narration that’s a good match for the gritty contemporary romance content of these stories. His voice is deep and rich, truly resonant. His voice is like liquid sex and he is expletive royalty, truly the king of the f-bomb. The man delivers curse words more impactfully than I’ve ever heard from another narrator. Especially during the sex scenes. Bone-melting.
Mr. Snow’s rich, deep voice works well for a confident man and the Nothing Special men are that in spades. He perfectly captures their cockiness, but also their passion, loyalty, and vulnerabilities. There’s also humor throughout the series, providing an excellent counterpoint to the darker content, and Mr. Snow delivers that expertly as well.
Mr. Snow’s narration waxes and wanes across the series though, and towards the end, particularly in Books Four and Five, a lassitude sets in. His vocal performance starts to lose the performative aspect to it, tipping into extremely measured narration lacking the dynamic intonation we hear earlier in the series. Additionally, the pacing slows down.
Slow, measured, flat narration is a mismatch to the energetic, action-packed stories being told. It’s puzzling when it happens because Mr. Snow is spot on in other parts of the series. That dichotomy creates disengagement with the listener because the action on the page outpaces the narration of it, causing impatience with an audio that is already a behemoth in length.
That being said, Mr. Snow demonstrates excellent vocal chops here, his experience shining through. Even where I’ve noted what I perceive as flaws, his narration is still well above average and generally an asset to the story and characters he’s voicing.
Here are some additional notes and ratings on the five books:
Book One – Nothing Special 
(4.75 Hearts)
Book One is definitely the high point in the series, with the partners/best friends turned lovers romance between Cashel Godfrey and Leonidis Day. Cashel aka Cash aka “God” and Leonidis aka Leo aka “Day” are Detectives with the Atlanta Police Department, having de facto paired themselves up as partners on Day’s first day as a rookie on the task force. God was instantly drawn to Day’s out and proud, saucy, sassy, take-no-shit-from-anyone attitude. Their brash personalities meshed in an obvious and seamless way within minutes of their meeting. Their unspoken “collaboration” in silencing a homophobe (Ronowski) who was getting all up in Day’s face, sealed the deal.
When Nothing Special begins in the present day, God and Day are coming up on five years together as partners and they have made themselves into a formidable team. They head up a narcotics task force that has achieved unparalleled success under their direction and they are treated like royalty in the Atlanta PD. Their reputation precedes them both with other cops and the criminals. No one wants to be in their crosshairs and everyone wants to be on their team.
God and Day have intense chemistry, magnetic attraction, and unwavering deep trust. The segue from best friends and partners to lovers is seamless and effortless. Ms. Via sets the bar high with God and Day’s relationship and no couple after is able to surpass everything special about who God and Day are as people and as a couple.
One nit that bothered me at the beginning of this first book, though: These guys change their names as often as their underwear, and given the amount of sex they have, that’s a lot. God was interchangeably referred to as Cash, God, and Cashel in the earlier parts of the book. Same for Day, interchangeably referred to as Leo, Day, and Leonidis. Looking back on it, I’m not sure why I found it to be so distracting, bordering on confusing, because in retrospect, it’s clearly not complicated and seems so obvious.
I suspect the name inconsistency plagued me early on because I was simultaneously struggling to acclimate to the OTT tenor of the book. The first chapter or two seemingly contain f-bombs every third word. The story is aggressive, rough, in your face, testosterone. Everything is loud and big and bordering on too much. The language, love proclamations, sex, actions, reactions, even the characters themselves. For example, Cashel Godfrey’s personality, size, body parts … even his nickname “God”. It’s all. Just. So. Much.
That being said, you definitely adjust to the tone and Mr. Snow’s on-point vocal performance helps pave the way. This first book is the high point of not just the series but the narration. Mr. Snow gives God a low growly voice with a hint of a Georgia accent delivered with a slow drawl. It sits low in his register and provides God with a cocky, slow delivery reflective of God’s egotistical, intrinsic belief that he is as powerful as a god in his realm.
Mr. Snow gives Day a more middle-register voice which is balanced – a perfect fit for the way Day is a balance of aggressive and submissive, angry and giving.
Ronowski and Johnson play an important role in this story and Mr. Snow gets those voices right as well. Ronowski gets a higher lighter tone with a bit of a scratchiness to it. It comes across as younger than the rest, even though the same age as Day. It’s a good match for his lack of experience and him still finding his way as a newly out gay man. Johnson sits as a combination of Day and God. He has the drawl but at a higher pitch. It matches his personality well.
Trigger/Content Warning: on page sexual abuse of a minor/child
Book Two – Embracing His Syn 
(4.25 Hearts)
Book Two opens with a truly bizarre scenario playing out before us, involving the newest member, and third in command of God and Day’s narcotics task force, Sergeant Corbin “Syn” Sidney. Ms. Via does a terrific job of letting us see who Syn is as a person right from the get-go while also building the found family aspect straight away.
Syn’s romantic relationship with bartender Furious “Furi” Barkley was undercut in my view by twin storylines, one concerning Furi’s stalker ex, and the other concerning a murder mystery plot centered on Furi’s porn studio. The latter truly felt extraneous. The former was engaging but would have been moreso had attention not been diverted to the lesser sub-plot.
The best part of this story is the characters themselves. The chemistry between Syn and Furi is off the charts. Like crazy, crackling good. They’ve got an unexpected Dom/sub dynamic between them both in and out of the bedroom. Ironically, I actually enjoyed Syn and Furi more in later books, likely because the distraction of the other storylines is removed and we get to just see these two gorgeous men in their element.
Like Book One, Mr. Snow’s narration here is excellent. It’s sultry, sinful, absolutely dynamic, and appropriate for these two men and their interactions.
Trigger/Content Warning: On page spousal abuse
Book Three – Here Comes Trouble 
(4.5 hearts)
This book is an unexpected gem, rivaling God and Day’s story. Long-time partners and best friends Chris Green and Mark Ruxsburg are God’s Enforcers. Their very job description is to create trouble. They are the guys on the street, gathering the intel, shaking down the informants and the suspects, generally creating chaos (much to God’s chagrin). But nothing about God’s renowned narcotics task force works without them. They are seriously valuable, seriously trouble, and seriously entertaining.
These two men are colorful and complex, truly well-crafted characters given an immersive storyline. Ironically, though, what’s so engaging about the storyline are the relationships – Green and Ruxs, The Enforcers and the task force, Green and Ruxs and Curtis (who you may recall as the teen God and Day stopped during his robbery attempt in Book One) – not the action. We actually see and enjoy more of the Enforcers in action in later books.
This book is the exception to the rule concerning Mr. Snow’s narration: I don’t feel the narration added value here. Mr. Snow starts to slip at times into the monotone, slow, uniform-pacing I referenced earlier. He doesn’t provide a lot of dynamics and his delivery sometimes doesn’t match the words on the page. (For example, it would say yell and he wouldn’t yell; he’d just speak the words.) The narration is definitely solid and consistently delivered. It is just delivered in a way that fell short of his superb narration in the first two books and didn’t quite match the excellent storyline being told.
Book Four – Don’t Judge 
(3.5 hearts)
Don’t Judge was a challenge for me to get on board with for a few reasons. The plot itself definitely leans heavily on the on-the-street action, maybe to make up for the lack of it in the prior two books. Judge is a bounty hunter and the plot basically revolves around a super-charged “road trip” to track down a suspect and transport him back home. That part is enjoyable and probably what saved this book for me. The relationship development, and the characters, however, are flawed in a way that I found distracting.
Judge Josephson appears out of nowhere and there is nothing special about his personality. He’s a grumpy, cranky, know-it-all loner. Austin Michaels is the same Michaels we’ve seen in prior books, but here it’s like he’s a whole different character. Were it not for the name, I wouldn’t have known it was the same guy.
When we met him previously, he had a child-like excitement over joining God’s task force, demonstrating an exuberance that radiated youth and engagement. When we meet him here, he is a tightly wound ball of rage that has overflowed into a bad attitude that everyone on the task force notices, but no one knows what to do about, including Michaels himself. Judge thinks he’s got the answer though. He determines in his estimable wisdom that Michaels just needs to get off and takes it upon himself to engage in some borderline dubcon sexual activity with Michaels towards that end. He also selfishly dismisses Michaels at one point with truly disastrous consequences that should be unforgivable, but apparently isn’t, at least not to Michaels.
The relationship between the two of them just didn’t work for me. Unfortunately, the narration doesn’t redeem it either. While Mr. Snow infuses some energy and dynamics back into his vocal performance, it starts to slip again into the monotonous towards the end of the book. While Mr. Snow’s narration is still very good – as is the case throughout – it’s not enough to diminish the flaws in the story itself.
As an aside: I usually refrain from commenting on editing when I’m reviewing books unless it’s egregious and distracting from the reading experience. Throughout the series, I noticed editing errors and inconsistencies. In Book Three, Here Comes Trouble, it really became pronounced, but I could overlook it because of the stellar Ruxs and Green and their story. However, these editing errors increase in Book Four, and I can’t turn a blind eye here because of the other flaws.
You’d almost think there was no editor at times because the errors, omissions, misspellings, typos … they are so glaring I’m just not sure how they were missed. Unfortunately, that also means they were distracting. It often broke the reading flow and sometimes I even had to figure out what word was missing or what the correct word was supposed to be – completely taking me out of the reading experience.
Book Five – Nothing Special V 
(4 hearts)
While ostensibly about the relationship between Steele and Tech, the best part of this fifth book is that we really get to dig into the found family aspect of this series. All of the prior couples have a role here (with the notable exception of Michaels and Judge), and we even get a quadruple POV story with Steele and Tech, as well as God and Day.
The best way I can describe this book is highly enjoyable but completely chaotic. The editing errors and plot inconsistencies abound here. The implausibility of the events in the storyline also hits a high watermark. Steele, an ex-Marine, is matched up with Ruxs and Green as Enforcers, so we get to see a whole lot of crazy with the Enforcers at work. *cheers* Mr. Snow’s narration continues to be a solid addition to the story, although the flat-toned, slow-paced delivery continues here.
Recommendation:
On the whole, the Nothing Special box set audiobook is a must-buy in my opinion. Despite flaws and uneven narration, at its core, the Nothing Special series is highly entertaining and enjoyable, definitely one to indulge in. Mr. Snow’s narration is a great addition to the stories in a package that is irresistible. (52 hours of audio for 1 credit!?! It would be crazy not to grab that.)
Note that this series must be read in order. If you do so, you will see that one builds on the next and your engagement with the characters will build as well. Even where the plot falters, the found family aspect strengthens. Is it perfect? No. But it doesn’t need to be. No doubt, Ms. Via and Mr. Snow have created a singular audio experience here that is worth your time. The best way to enjoy the Nothing Special series is to not think too hard about it. Buckle up, Buttercup. You’re in for a ride.
(Note: The Nothing Special series now includes three additional books that are not included in the box set.)
FULL BOX SET RATING: (4.5 Hearts)
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